“But what I like best,” said Marjorie, as the girls made a move to go, “is the fact that we’ll be together for two months--the longest vacation we have ever had!” “Do you suppose you can stand it all that time away from John Hadley?” asked Mae, in a low voice, at her side. “That will be too far for him to visit you, you know.” Marjorie frowned; the remark recalled her promise to John that very morning to go to a place where he and his mother might join her. A wave of regret spread over her; she hated to go back on her promise, but of course it was too late to change the plans now, even if she had wanted to. Anyone would be foolish to give up a whole summer for the sake of a two weeks’ vacation. “Oh, I guess we’ll meet lots of Western boys,” she answered, carelessly. “I don’t expect to pine away.” Mr. Wilkinson accompanied the girls back to the school, and although it was nearly half past ten, Marjorie and Lily insisted that he wait down stairs while they put on their riding-habits and returned, proudly, to show themselves to him. Then they made the round of the scouts. CHAPTER III. THE WEEK-END AT THE SHORE. Commencement was over, and Miss Allen’s Boarding School had been closed for a week. Marjorie Wilkinson was home again. For the last few days everything seemed strangely quiet and unnatural. No bells rang in the morning to arouse Marjorie from her much needed rest; there were no classes or meetings to attend; no gay functions at night that kept her up till the small hours. She accomplished her unpacking in less than an hour and arranged her room so that it seemed as if she had never been gone. Her old favorite books were back in her secretary-desk; her pictures were in their former places on the walls; her school pillows were again on the wide window-seat, and her monogrammed ivory set on the bureau. As far as outward appearance went, the girl was perfectly at home. And yet the strangeness of the life, in spite of the familiarity of her surroundings, impressed her as it had never done before during a summer vacation. Her old friends had vanished, and her new ones were too far away to take their places. Ruth Henry, her chum from childhood, who had afterward proved herself to be such a traitor, had moved to New York to finish at a fashionable boarding school. Harold Mason was spending his summer at a young men’s camp, and her brother Jack had taken a vacation position at a hotel in Atlantic City. There was no one left in town whom she knew intimately. For a while, however, Marjorie was too tired to deplore this absence of friends and excitement. She was glad of the chance to sleep, to read, and to visit with her mother. She went over her college catalogues, marking the studies she intended to take in the Fall, and she examined her wardrobe with the view of selecting the things she would like to take with her to the ranch.